


dots and dashes.

by katarama



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Crushes, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 21:56:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9517811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katarama/pseuds/katarama
Summary: It took him a longest to warm up to Nursey, to feel comfortable with much more contact than a fistbump after a celly.  There were the incessant “chill”s that grated on Dex’s nerves more than they should’ve.  There was also the voice in the back of Dex’s head to be careful, because once everyone found out he liked boys, there was no helping the fact that things with Nursey would get weird.Now, they’ve come far enough that he’s sitting on the grass with Nursey’s head in his lap by the pond, the sun finally warm enough in May to have melted all the ice and snow.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: Nurseydex + When you’re around I don’t know how to hide my feelings. I count in binary, in my head. zero one one zero one one and you count clouds. (while you count clouds)

Dex likes things he can touch.  His favorite computer science classes are the ones where he isn’t spending hours staring at code, but the ones where he gets to take a computer apart piece by piece to figure out how everything fits together.  There’s something gratifying about a wrench in his hand or skates on his feet.  It’s rewarding hauling in lobster traps and seeing the work he’s done right in front of him, feeling accomplishment in the ache of his muscles.

He likes physical contact.  He wouldn’t be playing hockey if he didn’t.  He won’t lie and say there isn’t satisfaction in the feel of a check that got the puck where it needed to go.  He won’t even say there isn’t satisfaction in dropping his gloves every once in a while - not unless he has to, not unless it’s down to the wire in a game that was dirty from the start, because the NCAA cares a lot more about fighting than Dex’s friends from back home.  But when a guy’s been beating up on Bitty every time his line hits the ice, no one’s going to blame Dex for getting a little bit rough and tumble, not even Nursey.

Dex has never seen Nursey fight on the ice once.

But Dex likes touch in pretty much all forms, once he’s used to someone.  It took him a while to warm up to the hockey team, because it was nothing like his old team back home.  He likes it better here, though.  He likes the easy, casual contact the hockey team has going, hair ruffles or arms around shoulders or giant hugs, living out of each other’s pockets.  It feels like being back at his house, being part of a big and loud and sometimes messy family.

It took him a longest to warm up to Nursey, to feel comfortable with much more contact than a fistbump after a celly.  There were the incessant “chill”s that grated on Dex’s nerves more than they should’ve.  There was also the voice in the back of Dex’s head to be careful, because once everyone found out he liked boys, there was no helping the fact that things with Nursey would get weird.  

Now, they’ve come far enough that he’s sitting on the grass with Nursey’s head in his lap by the pond, the sun finally warm enough in May to have melted all the ice and snow.

Dex has twenty other things he should be doing.  The hockey season is long over, but finals are looming, and Dex has some code for a final project that he’s been wrestling with for almost a week that still doesn’t seem to want to do what he tells it to.  He should already have started packing up to move into the Haus, because he won’t have much time once his mom arrives.  His older sister needs to move out of the dorm, too, and since she isn’t far from Dex, they’re going to save on gas by doing it all in one trip and stuffing the car full.  He needs to, at the very least, start putting things into boxes.

Instead, he’s sitting by the pond, slathered in sunscreen, trying hard not to focus on the way Nursey’s mouth curves around words as he talks about the clouds.  

It isn’t something that Dex would be doing, if it were left up to him.  The clouds are nice.  The air is warm.  The grass is soft.  The lake is pretty.  Dex sent a picture to his mom, because she likes seeing the campus.  It is admittedly pretty peaceful.  It’s just a lot of time to be sitting there doing nothing.  And the clouds are nice, but they aren’t _that_  nice, to Dex, not in the way they seem to be to Nursey, who has ten words about them for every one of Dex’s.

Dex is pretty sure that he’s hearing the rough draft of part of Nursey’s final project for one of his hipster poetry classes in progress.  It’s kind of abstract, and it doesn’t really match up with what Dex is thinking about in the moment, but Dex also doesn’t mind it so much.  He likes the way the words sound when Nursey says them, though that probably has more to do with Nursey than it does the clouds.  Dex doesn’t know what he’d do if he had to put his thoughts into pretty words like that.

It would mostly be about Nursey, right now, which would be kind of embarrassing.  He can’t even translate his thoughts into action, let alone poetry.  

Dex likes when Nursey lays his head in Dex’s lap like this.  He likes the way he can feel the weight of it, a little heavy after a while but mostly just solid.  It’s his favorite thing when Nursey’s high and tells him that, just then, he wants Dex to get his fingers in his hair.  There’s a little bit of edge to his voice, as much of an edge as Nursey’s voice really gets, and Dex thinks that there’s probably something there that he doesn’t understand, but Dex can follow rules when they’re clearly laid out whether he understands the reason or not.  

Dex likes that Nursey seems comfortable with him.  Dex likes that Nursey falls asleep on Dex’s shoulder on the bus on roadies like it’s nothing, and he moves around a lot and drools a little bit, which is sort of gross, but mostly fine, because if nothing else it provides lots of chirping material.  Dex likes that Nursey is fine with calling him on shit, even when Dex kind of wishes he wouldn’t, because at least it’s Nursey being honest.  He’s seen the way Nursey is with some of his other friends, outside of the team, and he’s seen that Nursey is sometimes a little bit subdued in a way that feels more forced than chill.  

Dex likes Nursey’s eyes and the way they catch the light, and he likes Nursey’s bro snapback and especially his bro tank tops, though Dex would never admit that to Nursey’s face.  They show off Nursey’s shoulders, though, and the area where Nursey’s shoulders meet his back, and Dex likes it a lot.  

Dex likes that Nursey sometimes makes Dex listen to his poetry, even though Dex doesn’t always get it the way Nursey does, even though it sometimes makes him just sit there and wonder if Nursey honestly feels everything so intensely all the time.

Dex doesn’t.  Dex has a reputation for being angry, for being hair-trigger temper, but that reputation is mostly exaggerated.  He fought with Nursey a lot, and that was really it.  But he definitely doesn’t feel things the way Nursey does, even still.  He’s sitting there with Nursey, and he doesn’t have passionate thoughts about clouds or symbolism or whatever Nursey’s moved onto now.  Mostly he just feels warm and relaxed and good, and like he wants to kiss Nursey a lot.

“You look pretty chill,” Nursey says, and it takes Dex a second to realize he’s talking to him instead of the world, or nature, or whatever.  “You ever come out here by yourself?”

“No,” Dex admits.  “Do you?”

“Sometimes,” Nursey says.  He lifts his head from Dex’s lap and sits up so he isn’t talking to Dex upside-down.  “It’s nicer with other people.  You get a bit up in your head otherwise, you know?”

“Yeah,” Dex says, because that part he can relate to.  Because he likes things that he can touch, but he knows the feeling of having his head full of thoughts that only get more and more tangled the longer they stay up there, until they’re too much of a mess to say out loud.  “I can come out here sometimes with you.”

Nursey nudges Dex gently.  “Even though there aren’t any plugs here?” he asks.  

Dex still sometimes has to fight the urge to get defensive when Nursey chirps him, but it doesn’t bother him too much, this time.  “Don’t make me be gross and sappy about liking spending time with you,” Dex says.

“I wasn’t gonna make you, bro,” Nursey says, “though it’s nice to know you feel that way on your own.”

“Yeah,” Dex says, a quiet admission, opting for sincere.  He looks out over the water of the pond, trying to ignore the fact that he can feel Nursey’s gaze heavy on his face.  

“Hey,” Nursey says softly, after a moment’s pause.  “Are you doing anything tonight?”

“I’m meeting with my calc study group for dinner, but nothing after that,” Dex says.  “Why?”

“It’s even prettier here at night,” Nursey offers.  “With the stars and all.  And it’s not that loud.  Every once in a while you get the people streaking for the the 50 things to do at Samwell list, or someone going for a quiet spot after dates.  It’s mad romantic.”

“Sounds like you know from experience,” Dex says, but Nursey just laughs.

“Not yet,” Nursey says, and Dex finally turns to meet his eyes.  They’re intent on Dex’s face, serious, and Dex thinks it sounds like a promise, if Dex wants it to be.  “I’ve heard good things, though.  Thought I’d give it a shot.”

Dex’s mouth feels dry, and he doesn’t know if he’s reading into things that aren’t there or not.  He isn’t the best at this part, parsing out other people’s intentions.

“Yeah,” he says, anyway.  It’s worth the risk of him being wrong for the overwhelming hope that he could be right, and Nursey didn’t bring up the kissing for nothing.  “I’m free after seven.  I can swing by your dorm when I’m done.”

The smile on Nursey’s face doesn’t line up with the “chill” that comes out of his mouth, not at all.  

But Dex knows there’s a smile on his face that matches the one on Nursey’s, so, just this once, Dex decides to give Nursey a pass.

**Author's Note:**

> On tumblr [here](https://polyamorousparson.tumblr.com/).


End file.
